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IPs, anti-dam advocates want dam projects stopped

Call for GMA ouster

MALIBCONG, Abra (May 19) — Delegates to the 21st Cordillera Day held in the Buanao District here called on the government to de-commission existing large dams such as Ambuclao and Binga hydroelectric dams in Benguet and the San Roque multi-purpose dam in the Benguet boundary with Pangasinan as they called for the ouster of Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

A resolution from the workshop group which discussed dams recommended the ouster of the president who, they said, entered into contracts with imperialist countries in building large dams all over the country. The group referred to the dams being proposed in Mindanao and the Southern Tagalog, which when done, may even be larger than the San Roque dam, one of Asia’s largest todate.

The group noted that the Ambuclao and Binga Dams, built respectively in 1950s and 1960’s in Benguet are now harboring too much silt behind them and have flooded large lands which used to be devoted to upland rice and grazing of animals by the Ibaloy tribe who lived along the Agno River. Worse, the Ambuclao dam in Bokod, Benguet no longer produces the energy expected of it that it only provides the needed water for the Binga dam below it in Itogon town, also in Benguet, Luisa Besitan, a delegate from Benguet revealed.

The delegates say that large dams only inundated large tracts of agricultural lands in these provinces and deprived indigenous peoples of their access to their ancestral lands.

The resolution also seeks to strengthen international solidarity to lobby against unjust and anti-people policies of foreign capitalists.

Foreign capital, foreign interest

Most dams were funded and built by foreign monopoly capitalists with interests in energy projects worldwide.

The San Roque dam is funded by a $1.2 billion government loans from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). It was built by San Roque Power Corporation (SRPC), a consortium of Kansai Electric (Japan) and Sythe Energies (US).

JBIC may also finance the proposed P3.8 billion Saug dam in Mindanao.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) may be providing the major funding for the construction of the Pulangi dam V and Laiban dams in Mindanao and Southern Tagalog, respectively. ADB may extend an undisclosed amount in loans for the Pulangi dam and another $1.2 billion loan for the Laiban dam.

The SRPC, according to the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) and other non-government organizations working in Itogon, stands to net more than a billion dollars within the first 12 years that it will operate the dam and power plant. This was guaranteed by its contract with the National Power Corporation (NPC) which provides that SRPC will receive a hefty $16 million a month should it produce 30.5 to 54.2 gigawatt-hours of electricity. In the event that it cannot produce any electricity due to low water flow, it still collects $9 million a month.

The payment of such loans, Cordillera Day delegates forewarn, will be borne by each Filipino household and will be incorporated in the monthly electric bills. The unbundled electricity rates include universal charges as missionary electrification, environmental share, and foreign exchange adjustments in the generation charges. Some of these charges are some of the concrete examples of the burden being passed on to electric consumers as a result of the onerous contracts with independent power producers such as the dam operators as in the case of SRPC.

Dams at provincial boundary

Hozue Hatae, a campaigner of the Japan-based Friends of the Earth and an anti-dam advocate, observed that large dams in the Philippines are being built in provincial boundaries.

She said that usually, people downstream of the proposed dam projects favor its construction because of promised anti-flooding and irrigation components. She also noted that it is the communities upstream of the project who oppose the project because of the inundation and threats of siltation.

Hatae also noted that promised relocation for evicted residents in dam projects have not been completed, as she cites the case of Pangasinan farmers who were displaced because of the San Roque dam in San Manuel and San Nicolas towns.

Hatae said that the proposed Laiban dam between the provinces of Rizal and Quezon in Southern Tagalog and the Saug River Multi-purpose Project at the boundary of Davao del Norte and Compostela Valley in Mindanao are situated in provincial boundaries. The proposed Palsuguan dam will also be in the Ifugao boundary with Nueva Vizcaya, while the Pulangi dam V will be built between Bukidnon and Cotabato.

This construction strategy, the delegates conclude, weakens the people’s opposition to the dam projects. Citing the San Roque experience, Besitan, herself a resident of an Ibaloy community in Itogon, said that the government succeeded in coopting those living below the dam. The San Roque dam was already half-finished when lowland farmers realized the adverse effects it would give them, Besitan said.

Hatae also said that when promised relocation, compensation and livelihood projects have not been completed, more lowland farmers now oppose the dam project.

Disastrous impact on the economy

Delegates from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao who joined the workshops on dams noted similarities in the dam projects. They said these are all geared at producing electricity, providing irrigation water and trapping silt. They also noted that the dam projects are funded by foreign banks and constructed by foreign companies.

However, they noted that all the dam projects would displace several tribes from their communities, bring misery on the indigenous populations and bring huge financial burdens on the Filipino people.
“These dam projects bring disastrous effects on the economy,” a professor from the University of the Philippines, also a delegate, noted. # Lyn V. Ramo for NORDIS

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